The Sun is here!

Today is a great day.  Yesterday was a great day.  I foresee great things to come.  And of course, apologies for the absenteeism on the blog, I've been doing this thing called work, that and other things have been taking up a lot of my brain space lately.   Yesterday, after coming home from lunch and dancing with lovely Kristina, I was delighted to finally find none other than HEALTH AND DENTAL INSURANCE cards in the mailbox!  Some of you, my close friends, know about this saga that has been ongoing since January and what an amazing relief to get these plastic pieces of risk management in the mail.  Picture unrelenting pulling of teeth and scratching of nails: that is how these past few months have been, ME convincing THEM that I (we) deserve insurance.  CPS has this inane policy that if your "insurance window"of 30 days from the day of hire has closed, then you become ineligible until the next enrollment period, at the start of the school year.  Well, as you know I was hired as a temporary teacher first, and months later my position became full time.  At the time of hire, I discussed in it's entirety the process of acquiring health insurance, and the friendly CPS officials assured me that if I chose to wait until my temporary position was complete, and that if my position became full time, I would have no problem with joining the CPS benefits plan.   So, not wanting to risk losing our personal insurance policy and then being out in the proverbial no insurance land cold, we kept our personal policy and decided to wait until/if I was hired for a full time position.  This is not even the beginning of the plight to get health insurance, I will spare you the details but suffice it to say that the process involved multiple emails, phone calls, me documenting every interaction and then compiling it all into an written appeal that named each individual that I spoke with and quoted the direct and repeated misinformation that I was given.  I never received a response to my appeal, though I was told that I would receive an email or letter.  After several weeks of calling repeatedly to inquire as to the status, I was told that my appeal had been sent on to the insurance company for approval.  And several weeks after that, yesterday came along, and now we have, in hand, insurance.  All of this for "the privilege" of participation in an incredibly flawed system.  At first I was elated, and now I am mildly put off that in this country, we still have to fight for basic rights like health care.

Today is still a great day, despite my mini rampage on CPS and insurance companies.  I woke up with the sun, and then chose to stay in bed.  I let myself drift in and out of dreams for a full hour.  This is the epitome of luxury.  A sun filled room, letting myself lay still, no alarm, and no plans all day.  It's the beginning of my 2 week spring break.  We've been less than illustrious with our planning, so it remains to be seen if we can snag a cheap flight somewhere, or if we will go on a mini road trip.  Nick is now coaching soccer for a CPS school, and his school is not on Track E, like me, so he only has 1 week of Spring Break (the second week of mine).  Well, that was a circular explanation.  We know for sure that we're going to Cincinnati next weekend for Maggie's (my almost sister-in-law!) bridal shower, but other than that, we are free birds for next week.  I am not sure how I will spend this coming week.  This apartment needs a lot of work.  And, I have a lot of catching up to to in the baking, reading, biking, lake time, friend time and dancing niches in my life.  And, I'm looking forward to the sun.  My face is ready for the freckles.

And one thing I forgot.  On Friday, one of my 4th graders, who is amazing, defiant and autistic told me that I was a great teacher, in his thickly accented, but clear English.  Lately for him, the word "sucks" has been on repeat, but on Friday he was joyful and smiling and happy to participate and do really good work.  Milestone reached!